The problem is specially acute for foreigners who aren’t in the country yet and wish to find an accommodation before arrival. It has thus to be done electronically – email, skype… They don’t have any secure way of ascertaining the presumed landlord with whom they negotiate is indeed in their destination country. So when it comes to sending a deposit, the ONLY secure way to do so is via a bank-to-bank transfer, where the destination account is identified via IBAN and SWIFT codes which ensure (if you check the first two letters of the IBAN) that this is a real bank located in that country. If something goes wrong, there is at least a way for the authorities to identify the account owner.

A word of advice we give to members looking for accommodation:
Make sure you have met each other in person and you have a tenancy agreement in place before paying or transferring money for rent and deposit.

Here’s some more tips and a video report.